January 2024 19 to the brambles. When he got out and opened the derelict gate he felt the raindrops coming down seriously. He drove across the veld to near the black hump in the bramble patch. The rain was now drumming on the cab roof, however, the scientist didn’t let that worry him. He needed to look inside the carcass before the rain and the fading daylight completely spoiled his chance of checking out the rumen contents and the other organs. Doing an autopsy in soaking wet clothing wouldn’t be too nice so he took everything off in the bakkie. This was a bit awkward because his left arm was like a dead boomslang only thicker. Walking on bramble thorns would be a vast amount worse than working in soaking clothes so he tug-tugged his gumboots on with his right hand. His butcher’s knife and whetting gadget lived under his seat and although it was awkward securing the handle between the boots and using his able hand, he honed the blade. He high-stepped as well as he could over the brambles to the black beast. He flattened the plants close to the carcass while doing the usual preliminary check. Customary blood-stained froth from nostrils; anus prolapsing slightly; mucous membranes reddened. The rainwater was really pouring down now... He opened the abdomen and the rumen, cautiously raking the contents out, looking for any giveaway tenuous leaves of likely tulp species or even the rare Msumbethi clusters that had claimed a few dozen du Plessis oxen some years back. Nothing. The deluge began to sting his naked flesh as much as the bramble thorns did. Hailstones. Thunder began to crash. Lightning flashed. With water cascading over his head he couldn’t really inspect the pieces of organs he extracted. It was a very cursory autopsy -even though he almost entered the thorax vulture-like - but under the circumstances would have to do. He needed three trips from the carcass to his bakkie to retrieve the organ specimens and an ear. The walking was quite pleasant because the downpour was washing the muck from his hair, his body, and everywhere including rinsing out his boots. They did the rotator cuff repair surgery the following afternoon and removed some bone fragments too. Someone had put a 24/7 drip into his other arm and he ate stacks of meds. They discharged him five days later. But on the sixth day after his fall, he awoke in the middle of the night in great agony. His unaffected arm – the one that had done all the work – had a bicep muscle the size of a healthy African python. It was purple-red and wanted to burst from its compartment fascia. He vomited, he perspired, he cried out aloud, and he went delirious. He was rushed back down to the hospital. Nobody ever diagnosed the cause. It was all most bewildering because afterwards, that second week in the hospital didn’t exist in his memory. Perhaps if some research scientists do another survey of old vets they’ll find antibodies against yet another enigmatic skelm. Not only brucellosis, Crimean-Congo, Rift Valley, Q-fever, Bartonella, and West Nile. They might even find antibodies against a hitherto unknown subspecies of botulism. Always follow a man who walks with a limp; because that man has been knocked down many times but keeps getting up and moving on. Angus Buchan v Article
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